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One year ago -- almost to the day -- President Barack Obama had a sky-high 67 percent approval rating and a minuscule 29 percent disapproval score.

Today Obama's approval numbers stands at 49 percent -- a loss of 18 points -- while his disapproval is 50 percent, a gain of 21 points.

In that year, Obama has gone from a transformational figure leading large majorities in the House and Senate to pass a progressive agenda to an embattled leader trying to salvage his domestic agenda amid a series of surprising electoral setbacks and a spate of recent retirements.

Put simply: Politics is an unpredictable enterprise. Change is the only constant.

And so, while history and the national political environment are clearly tilted in Republicans favor, the CNN numbers are a reminder that much can and will change in the 259 days between today and Nov. 2.

Good to see all the partisans squabbling over deck chair arrangements on the Titanic.

The country is going to hell in a handbasket, and we are preoccupied with political gamesmanship than about anything else.

The most forceful arguments by both the GOP and the Dems are that the other side's ideas are worse, not that their own ideas are good. We're all more passionate, vocal and intense about what we're against than what we are for. Stopping things from getting done is applauded more than getting things done.

If the current trend (which has been gathering steam for decades) is not reversed, I think America's best days are behind it. Anyone seeing the current climate in Washington changing soon?

Word is Obama is still going to try to jam the health care down the throats of America.

Obama can not be making a bigger mistake.

First, Obama believes that doing something is better than doing nothing, but not if that something is not what the American people don't want.

It is pretty incredible that someone has to write that in a blog, because the situation should never arise that such a sentence ever be written.

Obama is going to make an even massive mistake.

Despite the title of Chris's piece, an even worse fate is awaiting Obama - an attempt to jam it that fails - that will only get the American people even more angry at Obama - and Obama will still not have accomplished anything.

Obama is about to PRETEND to be bipartisan -

Then he is going to try to get enough House members to RISK THEIR POLITICAL CAREERS ON THIS SCATTER-BRAINED IDEA ???

And then somehow, he is going to have 50 Senator stick their necks out again, and pass whatever other bill they need???

Those votes aren't even there now - and Obama is kidding - seriously kidding if he thinks those votes are there in this political environment.

If Obama goes down that path, there really isn't a way that Obama is going to emerge on the other side in a better position - it's going to be worse either way - and the democrats in Congress know it.

The country is not going to go for it - all of a sudden, after Obama not being bipartisan for over a year - saying OK - come here on this day and we will all be bipartisan.

The country is going to look at their televisions and think that it is a comedy channel.

On getting enough votes in Congress, there are not enough lemmings in Madagascar which Obama could import to go along with this plan.

Anyway - this is like watching the worst football team in the league just mess up play after play - it is just so ugly that you can't watch anymore.

There is a growing sense in Washington - among Capitol Hill staffs and journalists that you have it correct.

Most people are astonished at the reaction of Obama and the democrats.

What has happened over the past 4 weeks really has made crystal clear how inexperienced and weak Obama is - and how bad a position the country has been in for the past year with these people in the positions they are.

The democratic party would be vastly bettter off if they somehow got Obama to take responsibility and resign.

Zouk apparently doesn't know that it is one of two seats representing the people of Massachusetts. Democrats hope that Sen. Brown is similarly clueless. Perhaps the Brick Wall would care to sign on as an advisor.

IMO, these polls are designed to influence public opinion, not measure it. They provide a false basis for an anti-BHO narrative the MSM can repeat endlessly and move the needle against BHO. IMO, they know full well the poll is bogus. 1000 listed landlines--come on, get serious.

"Interviews with 1,023 adult Americans, including 954 registered voters, conducted by telephone by Opinion Research Corporation on February 12-15, 2010. The margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points and for registered voters is plus or minus 3 percentage
points."

Calling 1000 listed land line phones during the workday in a country of 300 million is really scientific-NOT. All you're going to reach are 1000 losers eating mac and cheese (or mayonnaise sandwiches) and watching Andy Griffith reruns (the real old ones with "Elly") or listening to Rush on their 30 year old AM-only radios, not quite O-Nation country.

I can just imagine the demographics of the folks that answered the pollsters' phone calls, although I'd rather not. This poll is beyond bogus, IMO.

Fair enough on the oysters. I tried them on a whim on my first visit to Boston (where I got a job and met my future wife in the same week). If you want the best seafood of your life, head into the countryside to Joe's Dreyfus Store Restaurant in Livonia. It's a drive, but OH MY GAWD good. I had the crawfish platter and was in heaven.

Does everyone know that when Bayh quit, he assured Palin's election in 2012? It will be Bayh versus Palin in 2012 and you libs won't be able to say she was a quitter. It will be the battle of the $400 Evan Bayh hairdo against the $4000 Sarah Palin Gucci jacket. Easily the most expensive campaign in history. I want her hand-me downs.

Most Americans disagree with you - most people in the country believe your party's policies, if enacted, will hurt the nation.

No one wants Obama's policies.

Obama promised to be bipartisan - which means to negotiate out CENTRIST policies - he never said he was going to be an ultra-left-winger and try to jam all this left-wing policies down the throats of America.

Anyways, time to enjoy the rest of Mardi Gras. Think about it...Thousands of black people are just so incredibly happy! Doesn't that want to just make you set yourself on fire????

Posted by: DDAWD | February 16, 2010 8:20 PM

Mr Dawd, (is it OK if I call you that?), I love Mardi Gras. My boyfriend and I were in New Orleans a few years ago during Mardi Gras. He spent the whole time at some land based casino (I think it was Harrahs) playing Blackjack. I spent a lot of time going to the restaurants near Bourbon St. My favorite was NOLA's. Emiril wasn't there though. I had a great time. The thousands of black people you refer to didn't bother me at all.

Great to hear RNC head Mike Steele was to meet with the Tea Party folks today. Any chance he was able to tell the Founder of the Party, Dale Robertson, that Dale's favorite racial slur, the one that adorns his sign, ends in "er" not "ar"?

@noa: Just checked in with a hard core BHO deadender. BHO is losing this person. That's not good.

BHO wasted a year trying to negotiate bipartisanship with folks who told him publicly they wanted him "to fail," and they planned to deny him even a single vote (unheard of in modern times) because he is a, well, you know. They were even publicly pushing for return to Jim Crow era literacy tests to disenfranchise voters.

Despite all that, BHO continues to waste time on "bipartisanship" instead of telling Reid to nuke the filibuster and ramming through recess appointments. Douglas Wilder's public criticism should have been a huge wake-up call but it hasn't been. That said, BHO is still at 56%. Oh well.

Allegedly, the retirement was brought on by a moon-sized conflict of interest concerning millions in income from Big Insurance and other corporate interests.

From Matt Sledge in dailykos:

"For many years Susan's membership on several major corporate boards (eight of them, in 2008) was something of an open secret. Only over the course of the health care reform debate was it widely spoken about in Indiana. With Bayh playing a prominent role in the haggling over the public option and medical device fees, it was impossible to ignore the fact that WellPoint, a behemoth insurer, was paying Susan Bayh hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Between 2006 and 2008 Susan earned $2.1 million from health insurers. Legal under Senate rules, Susan Bayh's refusal to step down from WellPoint's board, and her husband's denial that the millions she had earned from WellPoint would influence him, were greeted with derision from ethics watchdogs."

I guess it's chicken or egg. If Republicans weren't so united in filibustering almost 100% of proposed laws, you wouldn't need 100% of Democrats to agree on everything.

But that's what's screwed up with the Washington definition of bipartisan. To them, you need an x number of Republicans to make a bill bipartisan. In reality, getting all 60 Democrats to agree on a bill is bipartisan even if zero Republicans will vote for it simply because the Dem coalition is so ideologically broad while the R coalition is so narrow. 95% of the nations interests are served in the 59 Dems. However, the 5% of the population are represented by 40% of the Senate and so they can put up the illusion that Dems aren't being bipartisan even though Dems are making legislative proposals that the vast majority of the nation wants.

Nah, the Dems themselves are responsible for their own electoral difficulties. Republicans made it clear from the start of the 2009 session that they were planning on obstructing anything. Dems refused to hit back hard. Obviously Obama is the best communicator in the Dem party, but he's got a day job now.Democrats should have been hammering Republicans for obstructionism. They should have been selling the bill a lot harder than before. They should have taken control of the debate. Obviously it's a lot easier to obstruct than to accomplish, but Dems did next to nothing to fight what the Republicans were doing.

The real danger is that only radicals will be left - talking themselves into further delusions.

It is amazing how fitting the word "delusional" actually is.

Posted by: 37thand0street
------------------------------------------
The delusion that da union saves your job. The delusion that the D Party offers the inner city hope. The delusion that you can spend drunkenly into prosperity. The delusion that people who are trying to kill you are impressed by a public trial. The delusion of fixing the weather.Delusional is fitting.

Unpredictable? Take a neocom statist unvetted by the socialist paradise dreaming media. Add a dose of arrogance and condensation. Brag about your supposed intellectualism while lacking common sense. Couple with the Dbaggers and free lunch parties, and you have the making of the current freefall.

It's ok do prognosticate, just as long as we don't take things too seriously. It's more for fun and games. No different than predicting who will win the Superbowl next year or the NCAA Championship.

That being said, is there anyone who DIDN'T see Obama's popularity slide coming? This is America, people. We're not the most patient bunch and anyone who expected that the public would give Obama a reasonable amount of time to fix Bush's messes is pretty naive.

1) Obama went out of the campaign finance system - which artificially inflated his numbers. If the money was equal like in every other Presidential election, it would have been different

2) The democrats, who initially voted FOR the Iraq war, turned on our men in the field, and started demanding a pull-out. Harry Reid declared a loss - however they maximized their political benefits from that issue - but that issue has nothing to do with domestic policy - and is short-lived.

3) The democrats played up dislike for Bush - who is gone now - and is not an issue - and that as an issue, does not affect domestic policy anymore.

The point is: the democrats have lost all the momentum from these three issues which carried them forward.

Transformational ? That was always a silly statement, and did not reflect the mood of the country at all - rather it came from an delusional ego-trip.

The democrats failed to offer anything to the American public that did not threaten massive price tags - exactly what the American public has been warned about for decades.

The democrats instead of proving that they were responsible fiscally grabbed the bait as fast as they could, completely discrediting themselves.

No comment about it in the mainstream media, but President Obama's embrace of nuclear power -- calling it a "green" technology despite unsolved problems with the disposal of dangerous nuclear waste -- may be the last straw for already disillusioned liberals and progressives who made possible the Obama presidency.

It's especially disappointing to those of us who realize that the military has developed new forms of "directed energy" weaponry based on science that some scientists believe could produce limitless amounts of cheap energy. But the civilian leadership either has been kept in the dark about this potential -- or purposely misled so that these technologies can be restricted to weapons of war and mass destruction instead of the betterment of mankind.

Example of the destructive application of one of these technologies -- being used to conduct a literal purge of American society:

Who would ever have expected that the guy who ran such a disciplined campaign would turn out to be so starry-eyed. Obama seems unable to recognize that Republicans are willing to let the nation fall into disarray, that they are hoping for economic calamity or “another” terrorist attack, that no, they aren’t good people at heart who will come around eventually. He’s dangerously naïve about them. Republicans are swine, Mr. President, and they don’t care if half the nation ends up on the streets or dead if it helps them get back to power, where they can finish off the rest of us not lucky enough to have been born into ten-figure wealth.

The real danger is the Americans will vote themselves out of the frying pan and into the fire by allowing the lying war-mongering pigs who got us into this hole to dig it deeper.

Obama lost 47% of the vote last November. Any early blip would prove as ephemeral as that of Reagan in '81 or Clinton in '93. Not to mention the 90% ratings of either of the Bushes following their respective Iraq wars.

Given a full year of the economy being in the dumper, a 49% approval rating is surprisingly high.

No president in recent memory came into office with such high expectations and ended with such opposition, all due to being stubborn and dimwitted. Somehow people thought that a problem caused by conservative ideals of deregulation, tax cuts, and war were going to get fixed somehow other than regulation, taxes, and engagement. Somehow they thought that a fundamentally broken health care system could be fixed without changing the fundamental structure. Somehow they thought that jobs could be made without federal funding for new projects in a time when the private industry is scared to spend. Big problems require big solutions. Conservative problems require liberal solutions. Americans are idiots who turned a lie like "death panels" into a serious debate and suddenly talked about deficits when we were already ten trillion dollars in the hole.